It’s the second week of a new year and I’m still hopping! Thanks for stopping by my blog for day 1 of the Something New, Something Naughty Blog Hop. Authors Jennifer Wright and Lizabet Sarai have put this together and opened it to a handful of authors. Including me! Thanks Jen and Lizabet. 🙂 One lucky winner will receive the grand prize of a $60 gift certificate to EdenFantasys (adult store) and two other winners will receive a $25 gift certificates to their choice of the following book sites:Amazon, All Romance eBooks, Barnes & Noble, or Total-E-Bound

>>>o<<<
To participate in this themed hop, I’m supposed to talk about new (as in new year) or naughty. Or even a combination of the two! New is self explanatory, but what is naughty exactly? Dictionary.com says several things about the word, everything from not eating your vegetables naughty, to mischief naughty, to vulgar naughty. The sister site Thesaurus.com offers a lot more from A to Z – well almost to Z. I found Aberrant to Wicked and a crazy amount of nuanced meanings in between. There are shades of naughty!

So, armed with a load of naughty variants, I’ve decided to offer several shades of naughty in my writings. I’m also offering insights into new things I’m up to in 2013.

As far as new goes, today I have a post in the Life section of the USA Today in the Happy Ever After Blog. There I explain how I came to write The Witchy Wolf and the Wendigo — a story inspired by the urban legend of the Wisconsin wolf man. Here’s the link for a quick peek:

And…
Here’s a “playful” naughty snippet from book 1 of The Witchy Wolf and the Wendigo. I won’t go into what happened prior to this scene, but Olivia still doesn’t know the wolfish dog she’s petting on her bed is a 3000 year old immortal native American shaman. She thinks he’s simply the dog she hit with her car — a dog whose severe injuries miraculously healed in a matter of days…

…they found her brother Jack already there with her car. To Olivia’s surprise her brother was trying to get the wolf-cross to chase a stick. The dog wasn’t having any of it.

Olivia gave the dog a cursory once-over. He looked fit as a fiddle. Turning to her brother she said, “Yeah, I do. Though it’s better than yesterday. Thanks for bringing my car home. Where’d you find my dog?”

“Your dog?”

“Mine, temporarily. We haven’t found his owner yet.”

“He was waiting at the door. Does he have a name?”

“I’m sure he does, but I don’t know it.”

Jack petted the wolf-cross’s big head. “I’ll take him, if no one comes for him. He’s a good dog. Aren’t you, big fella?”

Ash’s eyes never left Livie. She looked well, beautiful in fact, despite the bandage she wore. He wagged his tail and lolled his long pink tongue. He’d lived the equivalent of sixty lives of men and not once in all that time did he think of anyone but his wife. In the past few days he’d been thinking of this woman almost to the exclusion of all else. He found it curious.

She looked at him, not knowing what to think. The fact of the matter was he’d been seriously injured just four days before. The compound fracture alone should have taken weeks to heal, yet here he was with no sign whatsoever that the jagged leg bone had pushed through the skin and necessitated surgery. Somehow he managed to chew off his bandages and run away the first chance he got. Just thinking about it made her head throb. That’s all she remembered. The dog ran off and she drove after him. She must have driven off the road and hit her head. Maybe a deer ran in front of the car.

Her family saw Olivia fed, settled in bed, and set up with a stack of garden magazines.

Her father asked. “What else can I get for you, Pumpkin?”

She smiled at him. “Would you mind opening the window a crack? After that stuffy hospital room, I need some air.”

“Sure.” Appraising the old ill-fitting panes, he added, “I’ll come by next week and we’ll see about putting up some insulation. This old house is too drafty and winter is coming.” When her mother came in with a large glass of water and a new bottle of Extra Strength Tylenol, Olivia knew they must have sent Jack to the store. It was confirmed when her mother said, “Take these if your head starts hurting. Be sure you drink enough. Your brother picked up juice and popsicles, too.”

Jack said from the doorway, “Yeah, prune juice, and all green ones.”

Olivia laughed, then winced. When they were kids, the green popsicles were everybody’s least favorite choice. Needless to say, that was often all that was left.

Her brother patted the furry animal beside the bed. “Your dog never leaves your side, does he? I bought him a can of dog food but he wasn’t hungry. He wouldn’t even eat a piece of cheese.”

Olivia looked at the wolf-cross sitting there, watching like he fully understood their conversation. “He’s kind of picky. After I nap, I’ll make something for both of us.”

Not the sort to take “no” for an answer, all three tried valiantly once more to convince her she’d be better off at home. They even offered to take the dog, too. She thanked them, kissed them goodbye, and sent them on their way by assuring them all she was going to do was sleep. Alone now, Olivia patted the bed beside her. “Come up here, big guy.”

Ash leapt onto the bed and lay beside her. He stared at her expectantly.

The small movement bringing that painful ache to life in her temple, she pressed a knuckle into her throbbing eye socket. “God, my head. Listen, I have no idea how I got this lump on my head, but no more running away. Understand me?” His tail thumped the bed.

Olivia rubbed his ears and patted him and smiled when he rolled over on his back. Her fingers gently combed through the thick fur to the pink skin underneath. No sign of his recent stitches. She felt his foreleg from shoulder to toes. No swelling. She moved it carefully with one hand while pressing her palm flat where the bone had been broken. No grinding bone on bone. For all intents and purposes, this dog had never been in an accident nor had surgery. It defied logic. She absently rubbed his belly, her mind on every implausible detail since she’d run him over.

Ash closed his eyes to Livie’s caress. Her hand swept up and down from his neck to just below his navel and he found his soul awakening to it. His body stirred too.

This was a very happy male dog. It was impossible not to notice, with the telltale evidence making an appearance. Olivia leveled a look at him. “You will not lick yourself on my bed, buster.”

Ash rolled side to side, his tail wagging and teeth bared. Livie laughed, and it made him pause. He’d heard her laugh when she talked with Jenni, but he hadn’t heard her laugh like this, and never for him alone. The sound was merry and genuine and it made him happy. To his surprise, he wanted more. He craved her touch. He craved her. He nuzzled his nose under her hand. Touch me Livie.

“How did you heal so quickly? This just doesn’t make sense.”

Ash knew she spoke more to herself than to him but listening to her eased him. Heal? Yes, that’s what’s was happening. He felt the flutter in his chest and knew it for what it was. His heart was healing. He’d loved his wife with his heart’s every beat. He’d loved their precious child with his every breath. He always would. But because of this gentle, caring woman, he felt his shriveled heart expand for the first time since that monster stole his family from him.

After a while her hand stopped its gentle caress and Ash knew she had fallen asleep. Listening to Livie’s regular breathing, he crawled up beside her and laid his heavy head across her chest. He closed his eyes and let her heartbeat lull him.

Was it so? Did he have room to love another? He needed to seek the Manitou. He must know if this were meant to be. But more than that, he needed to visit Aiyanna in his dreams again. A short time later he dreamed his life, dreamed of falling in love, dreamed of every memory of his wife he owned. Then of his own doing, he took his dreams to the very last day they shared…

🙂 fun huh?
Tomorrow I’ll share a different shade of naughty from another book.

>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<

Like this:

LikeLoading...

Related

About ~RoseAnderson

Rose Anderson is an award-winning author and dilettante who loves great conversation and delights in discovering interesting things to weave into stories. Rose also writes under the pen name Madeline Archer.